Kings and Queens, and Breath of Death
by Ramzes
Summary: Princess against queen. Brother against sister. Dragons against dragons. And the realm burned. The Dance of Dragons through the eyes of those long gone, those who were the in the very heart of the flames.
1. Alysanne & Aerea

Kings and Queens, and Breath of Death

 _Alysanne & Aerea_

The sky went dark all of a sudden. In her solar, Aerea Velaryon smiled and the young girl who had just come with her sewing basket drew back, startled. She had recognized the edge in this sharp revealing of teeth. But the lady recovered immediately and looked at her with her usual serenity. "Thank you, Cora," she said nicely. "You may go."

The girl left, thinking of how much the old lady resembled her son, the dashing and dangerous Lord Corlys. She had never realized it before.

In the bailey, the dark shadow over the earth had expanded. Cora looked up and barely contained a cry of awe and fear. She was born at Driftmark, so she had seen many dragons flying over the island but she had never seen one actually come down and her mother had to tug at her sleeve forcefully to get her to move. She saw the huge lamps that were the beast's eyes, the mouth opened in a pant that shook the branches of the trees in the gardens, the scales that surely no axe could break. The dragon was so majestic that she actually forgot to sink into a curtsey when the woman descended from his back. She only remembered when their eyes were at one level, the regal-looking lady and the gawky, awkward young girl who had yet to grow into her limbs. She curtsied, mortified and scared, but the lady did not seem to mind. She only nodded in recognition of the gesture.

"What does the Queen want?" Cora's mother asked in murmur. "She hasn't come here in years."

Only now did Cora recognize how great the offense she had inadvertently given was. But by the way Alysanne Targaryen walked, she had greater things on her mind than caring about an awestruck young servant. And then, the second dragon came, with the girl who was just a few years older than Cora and so pale and dreamlike in movements that the servant felt a sudden stab of pity.

* * *

Aerea's curtsy was as respectful as ever, her manners – perfect. Her eyes – cold. Alysanne had gotten used to all those things long ago but now they pierced her with a sudden pang. _Am I growing old,_ she wondered. _Is that it? Or is it this new loss that made me ever so sensitive?_

She seated herself on the sofa that Aerea vacated for her and remembered how both of them had laughed, the so young Queen and the even younger Princess, with Aerea playing antics of ever so great veneration. Those had been good days and she wondered when they had ended. Too busy with her own life and budding happiness, she had failed to notice Aerea's dissatisfaction and slow sinking into misery.

"You've heard?" she asked.

"Yes." In the late afternoon sun the wrinkles on Aerea's face were not this visible. She looked younger and calm. Always calm. Never revealing her joys and sorrows. Alysanne wondered what it was this time. "I am sorry," Aerea added. "I was fond of Aemon."

Unbidden tears came to Alysanne's eyes but she blinked them away. She had been thinking about Jaehaerys' decision, the hurt that it had caused her, the injustice of it all. She had never thought that Aerea might have actually known Aemon closely or even associated with him more than strictly necessary.

"And now he's deprived Rhaenys of what should be hers," she whispered. "I didn't believe that he would."

As if summoned by the very speaking of her name, the girl appeared at the door, looking far more exhausted than the ride alone could have made her. Since her father's death, sleep had avoided her and she had avoided food. Alysanne had had to resort to threats of force-feeding if Rhaenys wouldn't do it herself.

Aerea's expression softened. She went to the girl and opened her arms and to Alysanne's surprise, Rhaenys went willingly.

"Here, here," Aerea murmured. "You know your mother and father would have been horrified to see you this dejected, won't you?"

Did they know each other this well?

"They would have been mortified if they knew what took place!" Rhaenys' voice was fierce despite her tears. "You warned me. You told me that Grandfather would never choose me but I hoped and believed…"

"Stop here," Aerea said firmly. "It wasn't wrong of you to put your hope and trust in your grandfather's hands. I also hoped he'd choose you."

 _I bet you did_ , Alysanne thought. The moment Aemon had offered the match between his infant daughter and Aerea's widowed son, she had been eager and more willing than Corlys himself.

"But he chose Uncle Baelon," Rhaenys exclaimed. "Uncle Baelon, and Viserys after him. Viserys who is so eager to please everyone that he'd bed Aemma as soon as they wed!"

Alysanne saw the moment Aerea's body stiffened. She hadn't known. Not about the impeding wedding. _We didn't do anything wrong_ , she thought fiercely. _We didn't give her up to a monster. We gave her to the heir of Driftmark. And I was fourteen myself when I wed!_ Yet she knewthather niece had been seeing things differently ever since she had become mature enough to make sound reasoning.

"Well, that is very unfortunate for poor Aemma," Aerea said. "But as you know, one person's happiness and wellbeing had never played supreme part in a king's decisions and it shouldn't. I expect that Viserys will indeed try and father an heir on her as soon as possible but many will see that as a sign that he'll be a good king, concerned about his succession. But that is no concern of yours right now."

Alysanne tried not to hear that cold logical reasoning. Her heart was breaking for her granddaughter, yet she couldn't help but imagine what Aerea's own wedding night must have been like. She, too, had been eleven – the price for the Velaryon support, the certainty that she'd never wed a man who was as powerful as a Velaryon but willing to raise a claim on her behalf. Aerea's father had been their older brother, much like Alysanne's Aemon had been Baelon's.

"Are you going to break the betrothal?"

Rhaenys' voice was so faint that at first, Alysanne couldn't make out any sense of the words or even believe that her granddaughter had said them. _By the Seven, child! Is this fear what you had been living with as well, besides the fear that Jaehaerys would decide against you?_ Alysanne wished that Rhaenys had come to her. She would have soothed her premonitions, assured her that Corlys and Aerea would never reject her, that it would be unwise… or would it? Alysanne no longer knew any answers. She had truly never expected that Jaehaerys would overlook an accomplished young woman like Rhaenys for no better reason than her being female.

"You'll have to ask Corlys." Aerea's voice was gentle but firm. "But I don't think he has ever thought about such a thing. You aren't nobody, Rhaenys. You're Prince Aemon's daughter. The King's granddaughter. A dragonrider…"

Aerea had never had a dragon herself. In their flight from Maegor, when the twins had been babies, their dragon eggs had been lost. And Rhaena had thrown away the ones Maegor had given them, although perhaps she had regretted it. Somehow, they had never been given others. Alysanne had never given that much thought in her childhood and youth but later, she had wondered if that hadn't been another step in her mother and Lord Baratheon's program of enforcing stability on the realm.

"I'll ask him." Rhaenys' chin was held up high. "I'll find him and ask him now."

She strode out with the swiftness of a purpose discovered. Alysanne shook her head. This girl was direct like a man and while Alysanne could appreciate that, many wouldn't. Aerea stared after Rhaenys with a fond smile and Alysanne again wondered how well they knew each other.

"So, what are you doing here?" Aerea asked when the girl left.

"Rhaenys wanted to come and talk to the two of you before she goes to Storm's End. She wants to spend some time with her mother's family."

 _In other words, she refuses to stay in the Red Keep and she no longer has a home at Dragonstone._ Alysanne felt as if she had said it aloud. Aerea, of course, would know.

"Did you truly know that he'd choose against her?" the Queen finally asked.

"Of course I did."

Else, he would have given way to the doubts about his own line's legitimacy over me. Like Alysanne, Aerea didn't say it. And like Aerea, Alysanne knew. She knew and prayed that Corlys didn't refuse the match, that old wounds could be closed, that healthy children would be born, and many of them. Because Alysanne feared that this might not be the case for Viserys and poor little Aemma. After all, Corlys who had been born a little after his mother's twelfth nameday, had stayed her only child.

 **A.N. In this headcanon, Corlys' nephews aren't actually his siblings' children but more distant relatives.**


	2. Alicent

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Kings and Queens, and Breath of Death

 _Alicent_

As the years went by, she found it increasingly hard to believe that Viserys' daughter had ever been anything else but an enemy, and yet it had been so. As dislike and silent battles piled one on top of another, instances of laugh and mutual affection became ever so distant but the general sentiment was still alive in her memory: in the beginning, she hadn't minded the child at all. Why should she have? Rhaenyra was a _girl_. She was charming, had always been so, and in the first year of her marriage, Alicent had greatly enjoyed her company. She could even point out the exact day when Viserys' affection for his daughter had touched a nerve…

She was prompted against a few pillows, watching him leaning over the cradle. "He looks so healthy." There was awe in his voice and she smiled. Deep in her heart, she had feared that she would end up like Queen Aemma had every single time. Except for one.

"He is," she agreed.

"He'll ride a big dragon," Viserys mused. "He'll be Rhaenyra's right hand."

Alicent had started dozing off but those words startled her enough to make her sit upright. As pain shot through her, she wanted to scream. Did he need to make even this day about Rhaenyra? As she cautiously tried to find the position where the pain would be as small as possible, she realized that the announcement she had been craving and expecting – her son being proclaimed the Prince of Dragonstone, she knowing that she had given Westeros its future king – would not take place. Not today, at least, she told herself, trying to stifle her disappointment. She had no doubt that this glorious moment would come but it would have been nice if it had taken place in the aftermath of the greatest effort in her life.

But it didn't. It just didn't. Never. At first, Viserys would look at her and start explaining about him having once a decision that could not be altered. Then, he started showing his true feelings. He did not want to alter the decision. He might laugh at Aegon's bumping into things and looking confused at why he hurt as he learned to crawl but Rhaenyra was the one who had the most powerful grip on his heart. As time went by, Alicent started to realize that there would be nothing short of Rhaenyra's proved mad or something that would make Viserys even start _considering_ changing the succession to its rightful way… before waving it off.

"What's wrong with you? Why can't you convince him to change his mind?" her father insisted and she felt as if she was the one who repeatedly failed when the fault lay with Queen Aemma.

"Because I have given him a healthy son and a robust daughter," she once snapped and despite his look of befuddlement, she didn't elaborate on how Viserys might have treasured her children just as much if she had not been giving them to him so quickly, so flawlessly. If they had been as longed for and expected as Rhaenyra had been. But she experienced a fleeting thrill of triumph when she turned on her heel and left him standing there. When she had been just his daughter, she wouldn't have even dreamed of doing that.

And then, her father was dismissed from his office and that was the first time she and Viserys quarreled in no uncertain terms.

"He's been keeping the realm safe for years!" she exclaimed and immediately realized that she should not have said that.

" _I_ have been keeping the realm safe," he said coldly. "Rhaenys has been keeping it safe. By respecting the King's authority! Have you ever heard her cry and beg, and cajole in all the years you spent close to my lord grandfather? Of course not! Because she has pride. And dignity!"

Alicent gaped and suppressed the urge to lunge at him and hit him. Was that how he was seeing her? A pitiful weeper cajoling her way to his mind, as opposed to his proud cousin? She had given him the sons he had craved! She had been dealing with the senile old King for years. For that alone, she deserved to be respected above Rhaenys whom he so admired. It was easy to be dignified and proud when one didn't have to deal with an old man who didn't know who she was every day! But the Old King had at least had the excuse of his age and senility for acting the fool! Viserys, on the contrary, was well aware that a man's sons succeeded him in all everywhere except for Dorne!

"My father is just passionate about following the laws," she said, summoning all the calm she had in her.

"Is he?" Viserys mocked. "Or is he passionate about me following his wishes? And yours? You both knew the rules when we wed, Alicent. Or did you count on me losing my head with happiness and proclaiming our sons heirs the moment you were born?"

Since that was what they had been counting on, Alicent didn't say anything. This particular war would have to be abandoned for now, for there was something more urgent. "My father was the one who suggested that you make Rhaenyra your heir," she reminded him.

"And now he wants me to make this proclamation null and void. It won't happen, Alicent. Rhaenyra is my heir. It's been decided. And even if it wasn't, I should have been obliged to give the matter some significant consideration. Rhaenyra is the blood of the dragon on both sides. The blood of the Conqueror. And my grandmother would have made just as great a ruler as my grandfather."

Alicent turned away from him so fast that her golden bracelets clinked against each other. "Should I leave now?" she demanded. "If you think so little of the children and me, perhaps we'd be all happier if the three of us leave for Oldtown with my father."

She didn't know what she had expected of him. The conditionality of his love suddenly enraged her. He had never stated this clearly what he really thought about her. Not the blood of the dragon. He might love her but he didn't consider her Aemma's equal. Just like her children were lesser than Rhaenyra.

Viserys wasn't impressed. "As you wish. I think you'd be better off as Queen in King's Landing than Lord Hightower's niece in Oldtown but I was wrong about a number of things I had thought about you, clearly. You might be happier there indeed."

He was looking at her calmly from his padded chair. Although she wore his favourite scent and robes that didn't leave much to the imagination, although she was ready to receive him for the first time after Helaena had fought her way out of her mother's body, he didn't reach for her. Her ladies and all the servants around had made themselves scarce. All of a sudden, Alicent realized that all the court was probably talking about her right now, how she was losing Viserys' favour just after she had lost her most powerful ally. And she realized that she needed to start the fight in another way. More subtle. She should leave the open hostility to Rhaenyra who was now old enough to realize what was going on and react in the way Alicent had expected – very Targaryen-like. As willful and proud as the girl was already proving herself to be, there had to be a way to turn those against Viserys' own willfulness and pride. And Alicent would find it.

Meanwhile, she could enjoy the brief reprieve and let herself give way to what she truly felt about her father's banishment. It was there, under the fear and insult. The relief. He'd no longer be there to fuel her own anger at Viserys and hound her with questions why she wasn't successful. She no longer needed to defend herself from him.


	3. Daemon

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Kings and Queens, and Breath of Death

 _Daemon_

The castle of Dragonstone was a great place. An evil place, people said. Magic dripped from its very walls and the dragons that adorned it were rumoured to have been strengthened with the blood and bones of actual dragons, while the greatest one dozed under the volcano, keeping it alive with his breath, until one day he'd awake and turn the castle, island, port and village into a gaping ruin. Daemon had always loved those rumours, wondering what it would be like to live in such a notorious place. But now, the dark charm seemed to be lost on even him. With all he had, he was focused on the task at hand, the one that had brought him here. What he had always wanted was so close, so enticing and so nearly within reach. Before entering, he paused, planning his words and bearing again. He could not fail at this. He simply could not.

Rhaenyra received him in an elevated chair, not unlike a throne. Even in her solar, she never let anyone forget that she was the queen in waiting!

"Why are you staying in the dark?" he asked after bowing over her hand.

She shrugged. "I am tired," she answered. "But I'll have some candles lit if that's your wish."

"It is."

In the candlelight, he was surprised at how unwell she looked. She had lost weight and the bags under her eyes were as purple as the pupils. She waved him to a chair.

"I came to see how you're faring."

"I'm faring well," Rhaenyra said sharply. "Isn't it obvious?"

"No," he answered honestly. "I am surprised that your father didn't invite you over to King's Landing. Dragonstone isn't the best place for you right now."

"Well, it's the place I _have_ ," she snapped. "And right now, I am not sure I want to leave it. Only the gods know if I'd ever be allowed to return. Not if the Queen has something to say about it."

Now, that was more like her. Daemon smiled. "You're wise to be afraid of her."

Rhaenyra's eyes blazed. "I am not…" she started and paused. Daemon waited for her to continue but the silence drew on.

 _She knows that I'm playing her._ Quickly, Daemon reassessed his plans. Pretended concern wouldn't fool her, clearly. _You have grown up. No longer a child, are you?_ She was certainly less attractive than the girl he wooed once but perhaps she was cleverer. She still couldn't be what Laena had been to him but perhaps he could actually spend some time with her without feeling bored. If he managed to convince her, that was.

"Perhaps you should," he said honestly. "If you lose Corlys and Rhaenys' support…"

This time, Rhaenyra actually jumped to her feet. "I am not going to lose it!" she swore. He tried to read her expression. There wasn't any remorse.

"By the dragons," he said softly, astounded. "They _are_ his."

Suddenly, Rhaenyra laughed. "If only you could see your face," she said and sobered immediately. "Why are you here?"

No. Wooing her would not work. She was still grieving for Strong and perhaps Laenor. But that didn't mean that she couldn't be won.

"To offer you an alliance," he said. "I want to confirm the betrothals of my girls to your sons. That should soothe any fears you might have about Corlys and Rhaenys. And I want to discuss your future and mine. I very much hope it would be harmonious. Which includes you not marrying Aegon."

That was enough to stun her into speechlessness. But not for long. "My father will never…" she started but her voice faded. "He won't let her convince him," she went on. "And after the accident with Aemond, she will never…"

"Won't she?" Daemon asked, quirking an eyebrow.

Rhaenyra was silent. He could practically see the gears of her thought running a horrified round: Viserys pressing her as heavily as he had about Laenor; a marriage in which Aegon would never accord her the respect due to a future ruler, instead trying to confine her to a traditional wife's role; a reign in which she'd have to always look behind her shoulder out of fear what her consort might to; accidents for her boys the moment she gave Aegon a son…

"What do you propose?" she finally asked and he told her, whereupon, albeit not attracted to her anymore, he felt obliged to offer that they renew their acquaintance in a more meaningful way.

Wooing did have a part, after all. A small one. And when in the intimacy of her bedchamber, late at night, he reached for her bodice, the thought that he would make love to a woman whose sons he might kill one day was so thrilling that he needed no further stimuli to perform.

* * *

The news of Rhaenyra's state made him feel wonder and sadness at the same time. He had given up the hope for a son after the horror that had cost Laena her life. But with Rhaenyra, it might actually happen. She only seemed to give birth to boys. A shame it was, because, to his surprise, Daemon had found himself actually liking the little brats that she had spawned before. But if the child did turn out to be a boy, well, perhaps something would need to be done, and soon. Of course, not now. It could be a girl, after all. And Daemon wouldn't place his child's life in danger by causing the mother such grief. So the children ran around the castle, with Baela insisting to ride on Jace's back, and Rhaenyra kept swelling until one day, before giving her weekly audience to supplicants, she told Daemon that the day had come.

"Why aren't you in bed already?" he asked, startled, and she rolled her eyes.

"When the time comes, I will. For now, I'd rather not think about it until I absolutely must. Nothing will happen for a long while." She paused. "Perhaps you should go flying around?" she offered, clearly thinking that he'd be of no use here.

"Are you _banishing_ me?" he asked, incredulous, and she sighed but didn't deny it.

"I don't need you around, pacing before my door and asking foolish questions, like "Is she in pain?" Of course I will be."

"I won't," he promised, taken aback by her easy readiness to submit to the inevitable. But then, she had done it three times already without any complications. "Just don't send me away."

So she didn't, and he didn't pace before her door. Instead, he paced around her solar, wondering why all the children had decided to camp here, yet not having the heart to tell them off.

"Mama will have a babe," Jace announced importantly. "He'll be as small and screeching as Joff when he was born."

"I never screeched!" his brother screeched.

"If you don't keep quiet, I'll make you both screech," Daemon warned, belatedly realizing that he had only aroused their respectful curiosity. For a reason that he couldn't fathom yet, those three thought he was a hero. They wanted to be like him. Why, they were probably eager to learn how to make people screech… He had to admit that it felt kind of nice.

And then, a midwife appeared and he forgot all about screeching.

"You did it," he breathed when he first lay eyes on the tiny person in Rhaenyra's tired arms. He had no hair, eyes that were narrowing and widening and a lusty cry that would put a dragon to shame… Rhaenyra looked at him, freshly washed and smiling but still bearing all the signs of a great struggle. There was no blood in her lips. Pain had carved deep wrinkles in her face and her nose looked sharpened enough to cut through stone. Her face and arms were veritable nets of blue and red lines. Her hair was still damp with sweat. But she had never looked more beautiful, even when she had been hailed as the Realm's Delight. "You really gave me a son."

In her eyes, there was all the joy in the world. He reached over and drew a hand along her cheek. She smiled weakly and directed his hand at the newborn.

 _Jace_ , Daemon thought. _He said that it would be a boy._ But it didn't feel right to think of the boy he might kill soon right now. Not today. Jace's turn would come soon enough, probably. In a year or two. No more than that.


	4. Viserys

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Kings and Queens, and Breath of Death

 _Viserys_

Sometimes, he wondered if he should have wed Rhaenys, after all. At the time, the official reasoning of refraining from insulting House Velaryon after the well-known hostility between his grandfather and Lady Aerea had looked sensible, although his father had not shied away from telling him his private reasons in no uncertain means: Rhaenys would never accept her place of a consort. She'd try to turn herself into the real Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Viserys was too weak to hold his own against his forceful personality. In the moments of greatest bitterness, he wondered if one of the reasons to choose Aemma for him had not been her youth. She's never have dreamed of having her own way over his wishes. She had been a _child_. _Was it worth it, Father,_ Viserys found himself asking increasingly often. _Grandfather? Was it worth it to saddle me with a child? Force her to live a life of constantly carrying and burying children, only to die long before her time?_ Had he wed Rhaenys, whatever storms would have arisen with Corlys would have been blown away long ago. Rhaenys would have surely given him more children than the two she had had with her old man. And she would not have _died_ on him either. Leaving him with a woman who did try to walk all over him anyway.

Of course he wouldn't have had Laena. Not another child. Never again. And one whose own children – provided that she managed to give birth to them – would have had just as good claim as Rhaenyra if not better… He might have wanted the mother when young – sometimes, he had; the Seven help him, sometimes he _still_ did - for Rhaenys had been all a man could want in a wife and not given to women wiles and attempts to subvert her lord's decisions, even if she fought them openly – but he had never regretted refusing the daughter.

Those thoughts haunted him now worse than ever, for he had all the time in the world as he lay in his bed, the poison of the infected fingers reaching further and further, eating him away. He feared that when he ran fevers, he might have spoken those words aloud, for Alicent became shorter-tempered, more grimly-looking after she had happened to be in his chamber at the time. Then again, he had long stopped trying to make her understand. She made all about her – her rivalry with Aemma, Rhaenyra and Rhaenys, what she felt was the injustice done to her children, his perceived lack of love for her because he didn't defer to her wishes in the most important of all matters… As if he couldn't love her without pretending that love had been the only reason to choose her. As if loving her meant that he had to behave as if she had been a choice equal to Aemma or Rhaenys, or even Laena, the poor girl.

And he wasn't sure he even loved her anymore… As years went by, he realized that she was not the woman he had taken her to be and if that had not quite stopped his love for her, the look in her eyes when he caught her unguarded now sealed the deal for him _. You only wish for me not to die because that will speed the day Rhaenyra is crowned,_ he would think and yet the infection was killing him in a way Alicent's hatred didn't. If he could feel it through the milk of poppy, how much worse the amputation would feel like? He was tempted to refuse the procedure and simply let the Stranger take his due but even that would mean agony – a milder one, perhaps, but longer. If he let the Grand Maester do what he had in mind, he actually had a chance to be free of the pain after a while. He would let him act as Orwyle saw fit but he was scared, so very scared. Terrified.

As he sometimes did, he had ordered to move him near the window. Maegor's Holdfast didn't offer much by the way of view but it felt nice to let the sun permeate his huge but so frail body. He would often fall asleep bathed in its light, even, and wake up when it had already changed position.

Today, though, it was something else that broke into his sleep and startled him awake. Darkness that hid the sun, drowning the world in twilight. Dragon wings.

There was a great number of people who arrived this way, but his heart still beat faster, the hope to see Rhaenyra stronger than his dislike of the clashes that would inevitably follow with his queen. There was the small but real possibility that the amputation would kill him and he wanted her there, if only for one last time. He waited, his breath bated, and he smiled when he heard Alicent's voice rising in sharp discontent from the antechamber. He didn't remember her coming to visit today. More likely, she had come to stop someone from reaching him.

Sure enough, Daemon's voice made a short, angry reply but when the door opened a moment later, the steps that entered were soft. From his seat, Viserys saw Daemon before his brother saw him. Daemon headed for the bed and stopped when he realized it was empty.

"This way," Viserys said and when Daemon came closer, he saw the small figure now entering the bedchamber. Little Viserys, looking wide-eyed at those unknown surroundings.

"I thought you were sleeping," Daemon said. "At least that's what your queen said." The implication in his voice was palpable and justified… but there was no use to go down this familiar path now.

"Where is Rhaenyra?" he asked instead and Daemon gave him a long look.

"She's at Dragonstone, per your wish. After all, that's the only way to keep peace with Alicent, as you said. Although we would have appreciated hearing that you'd undergo such a serious treatment, I might add."

Viserys frowned. "I did ask both of you to come," he said. "Many times. Are you saying that none of the ravens arrived?"

Daemon raised his eyebrows. "I guess they might have all drowned," he said, the doubt in his voice making clear what he thought about that probability. But he didn't add anything about Alicent and Otto which made Viserys realize how poorly he might look, if Daemon, _Daemon_ of all people was being considerate. Still, he was grateful for his brother's silence, even as he wondered what Daemon would have done in his place.

 _Always the courageous one, Daemon._ He would have sent Alicent away as soon as her true self started showing. He would have made the High Septon break the union between Rhaenyra and that other Daemon and then deal with everyone claiming that the resulting child was a bastard. He would have done so many of the things Viserys longed for.

"I'll send her a new letter," Daemon promised. "She will come."

Viserys nodded, his mind at ease for now. His eyes went to the boy who was now looking at him from near the bed. "Come here, Viserys," he said. "Do you remember who I am?"

The boy nodded but still looked shy. He had forgotten much about him, Viserys knew, but he came close and when he did, the king was struck by the rapt attention in his eyes, eyes that showed a keen mind, not quite typical for a child this young. "You are my grandfather, the King," the boy said.

Viserys nodded. "Yes," he said. "I am your grandfather, the king."

"Why aren't you in the great hall hearing out petitions?" the child asked. "Are you ill? You look ill."

 _From the mouth of babes…_ Everyone else was pretending that just in an hour or two, Viserys would be his old self again.

"I am a little ill," the King admitted. "I will get better soon. So, why did you take your father to visit me?"

The boy giggled. "I didn't take him!" he said. "He took me. _Let's escape from this battlefield, Viserys_ , he said, so we did."

"And Aegon?" Viserys asked. "Why didn't you take Aegon?"

"He's being punished. But I am not telling why. It's a secret."

Daemon laughed and even the King tried to. Viserys looked really smart but even so, he was a child.

"He's very precocious for his age," the King said, turning to his brother. "His command of language is great."

"Not really," Daemon corrected, although the look he gave his son was full of pride. "I mean, he _is_ very precocious indeed but not because of his words. At this age, both the twins and Aegon could talk just as eloquently."

"Did they?" Viserys asked and worry stabbed through him as he realized once again just how silent Jaehaera was. Even when little Viserys had been her age, a year ago, he had been a ball of energy and babbling. She didn't do any of the things he had. _Poor Helaena_ , he thought as his grandson, feeling that he had paid enough respect to the adults, started positioning the figurines on Viserys' tables on the Myrish rug for a play that only he knew the rules of. A battle campaign, it seemed. "So, what a battlefield?"

Daemon shrugged. "Today is one of those days when everything goes wrong. Petitioners have been knocking on Rhaenyra's door before she woke up. Luke and Rhaena were having a marital discord before they were even wed. The castle cat rushed in the dining room and grabbed my morning meal straight from the plate… _and_ the damages from the fire in the village are still not repaired. Eventually, I decided to take Viserys for a flight. I didn't know you were so ill. I thought we'd come here for a few hours, ruffle a few feathers –" There was no doubt as to whose feathers he meant. " – and then go back to save Rhaenyra from whatever boring duties she might still attend to."

Despite his casual, disgruntled tone, Viserys thought he noticed something that was so untypical for Daemon that at first he decided that he had imagined it. Content. _Content?_ Was it possible that Daemon Targaryen, ever so restless, ever so ambitious, had found content in his marriage to a woman who would not make him king? Who wouldn't be succeeded by their own sons? The way he spoke Rhaenyra's name now had little to do with the way he had done before. _But at that time, she hadn't given him his dream and exceeded it, even. Not a healthy son but two._ They hadn't built a life of seven years and more together. Part of Viserys' worry about Rhaenyra evaporated. Daemon wasn't an enemy of hers like Viserys had feared. And if he had wanted to do something to the boys, the way they said he had done to Laenor, he would have started acting long ago.

"I am glad you came," Viserys said. "And brought him along."

Now, little Viserys was engrossed in attacks and ambushes. The two men stared at him for a while and then Daemon asked, "How are you?" His voice was low but insistent and serious, his eyes deep, and Viserys smiled.

"Waiting to become two fingers lighter," he said but his pretended cheerfulness did not hold long. "Will you stay?" he asked. "As they… take them off?"

Daemon nodded. "And until you wake up," he promised and when the maesters arrived with their goblets and the knives that gleamed white and so ominous, Viserys reached over with his good hand and squeezed Daemon's hand. Daemon gripped back and two days later, he'd still sport the bruises from Viserys' hold, strengthened by the pain. As Viserys drifted off and the maesters prepared their blades, he thought that it was strange how he suffered everything easier with Daemon next to him.


	5. Aemma

**Thank you, pinke289 and VVSINGOFTHECROSS, for following faithfully and sorry about the long delay!**

Kings and Queens, and Breath of Death

 _Aemma_

Since a small child, she had been warned that she would have no say in the choice of husband and no preference of hers would be entertained, so she felt no inner rebellion, no stifled resistance when she was told that she would be wed to her cousin. Besides, she was going to be Queen one day. Queen! What was there to rebel against? Still, she sometimes stole to the council halls where her father negotiated with the envoys from King's Landing and listened behind the door, and the tension in the men's voices and the sometimes raised tone told her that not all was all right. Not all would go smoothly.

Even when she renounced her claim over the Vale, she still believed that this was the right thing to do. Her father knew what was good, what was right. If he said that Alyssa would make a good Lady of the Vale, it must be so. Besides, her stepmother could still give birth to a boy, although after Alyssa, none of her babes had lived. The last one, she bled the very same day Aemma left for King's Landing, although they hushed the news.

"She came to King's Landing in the wake of a coffin," people would start saying later when she bled and buried her own babes, and they would not stop, and they would not care that Lady Verena's loss had come too early for the babe to have a coffin.

"Do you believe this?" she asked Viserys one night, soon after she had lost the second precious life she had been clinging to.

"No," he replied, not immediately but after giving her question some serious thought. His slowness did not disturb her because he was averse to his brother's spontaneous ways. And his answer gave her some measures of relief. Viserys was an honest person, as little as he loved disappointing people. If he had believed the rumours, he would have told her not to be stupid or something like this but when he gave a straightforward answer, he meant it. And this made it easier to bear.

"Do you wish that you have wed Rhaenys instead?" she asked on another occasion when she suddenly realized that while she was watching their cousin's two healthy children with sad envy as the Queen beckoned them close, it was the mother that Viserys could not take his eyes off.

"Do you care?" he asked back and while this was the answer that he would not say aloud, Aemma blushed at such a blatant reference to the other sore point in their marriage, one of two. Although she did everything she could to hide her revulsion from physical intimacy, he was way too perceptive to miss it. Lady Verena had assured her that as she grew older, the pain would stop but Aemma was fourteen already and the excruciating sensation showed no signs of abating. She feared that this would not happen at all.

"You're too tense and scared," her stepmother told her after Maester Cornel who had known Aemma since her cradle had examined her. "You're more mature now, in body. Try to stifle the fear, Aemma. Try it, and the pain will stop."

But no matter how much Aemma tried, she could not force her body to relax. Every attempt Viserys made to predispose her to him failed. The moment she felt him close, she turned into this child of eleven once again. And she felt that sometimes, the horror of this nights cast a shadow reaching far into the day of their lives, the way they were agreeable in temper and view of life, entertainments, everything.

The worst thing of all was that they could not even stop. They had to have an heir. A living one. And this was not happening.

"Lady Verena is just her stepmother and not mother!" she heard her uncle Baelon say in helpless anger to the Queen one day and if she were as brave as Rhaenys, she would have reminded him that her own mother had fared even worse than Verena Arryn. She had actually died giving birth to Aemma. But she could not escape the rising suspicion that to Baelon – most of the court, actually – this outcome would have been far better than Lady Verena's fate. Alive, barren, and making it impossible for her lord husband to have a trueborn heir.

She felt the first signs of a new babe when she traveled to the Vale for her father's funeral, right when all the lords and ladies of the Vale were paying their homage to Alyssa. Fear and joy warred within her as she tried to force herself not to throw up and watched her half-sister, so tall and beautiful, so young, so beloved, and so out of her element. Not that anyone but Aemma and Lady Verena noticed it. They only saw that Alyssa looked assured.

"It should have been you," Alyssa told her later and Aemma shook her head.

"No," she said. "You now have the training and besides, you've always been more of a lord than I ever was. Father knew what he was doing."

It stung so much to admit it but she knew it was true. She would make a wonderful Queen consort one day – should she ever manage to fulfill a queen's main duty – but Alyssa would be a much better ruler than Aemma could ever hope to be.

"Don't let them force her choose husband any time soon," Aemma told her stepmother when, exhausted by the exacting day, Alyssa had gone to sleep.

Lady Verena nodded. "I will protect her," she promised. "I failed in my efforts with you but there is nothing this pressing with Alyssa. She is no Targaryen at all."

A bitter smile twisted Aemma's lips. "It's strange," she said, "how at King's Landing, they think me so very Arryn, from my looks to my attitude. "

With each new year, each new summoning of the midwives in panicked hurry, the feeling that people felt she did not belong in King's Landing intensified.

Her stepmother gave her a shrewd look, took in her exhaustion, the deep lines around her mouth. "I'll take you to someone tomorrow night," she said. "Or rather, bring her to you."

When Aemma saw the small wizened woman swathed in black, her crooked fingers like grasping claws, she recoiled instinctively. She would have never believed that a woman as proud and virtuous as her stepmother would breach the unspoken prohibition of not seeking contact with evil spirits and seek fortune-tellers and sorceresses. But her despair was so great that she extended her hand and breathed a sigh of relief when she heard that her blood would live through on the Iron Throne. Not that she believed it. But she hoped anyway.

When she was told that she had a daughter, she wept out of joy and grief. "That's just the beginning," she vowed, feeling that she loved this small creature more than she had ever loved anyone in her life. At this moment, she believed that this was the first living babe of many but somehow, this never came.

When Alyssa, lively Alyssa who had rarely been ill in her life died in the birthing bed, leaving only the babe, little Jeyne, the new Lady Arryn, behind, Aemma wept out of grief but also out of envy. The undisputed Lady of the Vale! A lady in her own right. Not waiting to see if any younger brothers would be born. Not just someone's burdensome wife. She could feel the mocking pity even in the eyes of her ladies in-waiting when they thought she was not looking.

When the Great Council took place, Aemma was already half-convinced that she would never give Viserys a son. Her womb was a dead thing that had never been quite right in the first place, with this continuing fear of intimacy. What use was there of a council when all it would do was to hand the Seven Kingdoms to Daemon one day, when only he and Rhaenyra remained? The cruel irony of the repetition did not escape Viserys either, she was sure of it, although he did not wish to discuss it. And soon, Aemma had more pressing troubles. For the first time in her life, she found herself in love.

She had never believed in the kind of love bards sang about and yet the moment she saw Yorbert Royce, a man she had known for many years, she felt a lightning go through her body, straight to her womb. He was not a particularly handsome man. Too rough around the edges. Too big hands and feet – somehow, he had never quite grown into them. But the effect he had on Aemma as he bowed and gave her the well-wishes of the Vale was astounding. The memories of them being children – well, not together but he a boy already and she a small child – overcame her but underneath, there was something else. Stronger. Dizzying. Something that made her want to laugh and cry at the same time, something that made her come alive from the tips of her hair, through the skin, to her very womb. So she was not defective, after all. She was no different from any other woman. She knew for sure that only he could awaken the children in her but he was forbidden to her. Yet, she could not help but follow his smile, his every word, his uproarious laughter. When he was not near, the halls felt colder; when he came close, she wanted to dismiss everyone and just have him for herself.

He never spoke a word that should not be heard by everyone, Viserys included, and neither did she. Only their eyes spoke silently of a tale as old as time.

She had never loved Viserys but now she found that she could no longer stand the sight of him. He became repulsive to her in daylight, not only under the cover of the night. Everything he said, everything he did annoyed her. And guilt made her even more attentive to his needs and wishes. If he thought she was doing it because she was an obedient wife, the better. But in her heart, she wanted nothing of him, even the crown that they would inherit.

It was with the thought of the other man that she struggled during her last time in the birthing bed, and his name that she died on her lips with – silently, because even in death, queens were allowed little but honour.


	6. Jacaerys

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Kings and Queens, and Breath of Death

 _Jacaerys_

Maesters said that dragons knew nothing but fire and their riders. That they gave themselves up to these two things with such abandon that there was nothing left in them to spare for anything else. No regard. No notice.

Maesters were wrong and Jacaerys Velaryon, the Prince of Dragonstone, had never felt it more acutely than the first moments when he entered the dragon stables, every time now. Syrax and Caraxes would paid him no notice but his own Vermax and even Moondancer, as young as she was, would raise their heads and turn one enormous eye to him each, as if asking, "Where has the other lad gone?"

"He – the other lad – died", he answered each time, and then they would look at the empty spot that Arrax had occupied and lie down, puffs of smoke coming out of their mouths.

Had there ever been a time when he had gone to the stables without Luke? He could not remember such a case. They had always been a pair, the two of them – flying, training, everything. Or… more numerous, although Joff was too young to be included in their everyday practices and the girls had not been as lucky as them with their dragons. Rhaena was _yet_ without one and Baela's Moondancer had taken so long to hatch.

"Would you like us to do some flying on Vermax?" he asked now with some hope but not real expectation, and he was not surprised when Baela shook her head.

"I have other things to do and actually, we both know that it isn't my company that you desire," she said, turned her back to him, and headed back for the main building. Jacaerys stood there, staring after her and feeling as if she had been the one who had rejected him for someone else – when he had been the one to do so. The very moment when he had seen Alys Snow, he had felt that she was his answer…

It had always been Jace and Baela. Not unlike Jace and Luke and yet so very different. She would be his queen one day and he cherished this thought because she was… well, she was a good mate. He did not know what he would have done with a girly girl – fortunately, Luke was quite good at dealing with Rhaena and Jace was actually quite fond of his stepsister. He could not imagine them going out for some rowing without her, or the halls of Dragonstone without the seashells and sea pebbles that she brought from the shore. He just didn't want to wed _her_.

Always the four of them, often with Joffrey as the fifth one but not really one of them, and Aegon and Viserys who were something quite different altogether. The babes. Sometimes, Jacaerys wished they could keep it like this forever and wondered what would change when they all grew up.

He could never imagine that not all of them would grow up. The gaping hole where Luke should have been bled in every conversation, every look, every little experience when there should have been four, or five, or seven of them but there weren't. This was a hole that nothing could fill and it tainted every joy, every pride in his accomplishments. He was pleased with the fact that he could now prove worthy, that he was more than just the Strong the Hightower woman and her traitor children tried to make him out to be – but it was not enough. And he was always haunted by the thought that his best was not good enough. Could he have prevented the rift between his grandfather and his mother, instead of just mending it? Was he right in sending Aegon and Viserys away, or was he giving people the wrong signals, namely that he feared defeat? He wanted so much to have Daemon close by…

"Thanks the Seven that he's away!" Baela said emphatically when he admitted this much to her. He gave her a look of surprise and she went on impatiently, "Really, I admire my father but what in his life this far makes you think that he's any good at peacing things down?"

"This isn't a word,"Jace said, suddenly cheered by her habit of coining out new ones.

"It is now,"Baela stated. "And my father is where he needs to be." She paused. "I wish I knew where you want to be," she said and he blushed, hating to lie to her and still inexplicably afraid to tell her the truth.

It had looked so easy back in Winterfell. _"I'm sorry, Baela, but I fell in love with someone else,"_ that was what he thought he was going to tell her and could not utter now. Here, in his childhood home, with his future queen near, the first true stirring of his heart and the first awakening of his manhood – in Alys Snow's presence – looked like a dream, so faraway, never having been real… He remembered his wish to wed Alys immediately and take her with him, so he would not have return to a home that had been so changed in his absence already. Luke dead, Rhaena betrothed to Lord Stark already… Broken pieces that could never be mended. But somehow, in a way that sickened and shamed him, his brother's death had released him. Released him from the bonds that his mother had forged for them to combat the lie that they were not Velaryons. Released him from the expectation that he would one day fall in love with Baela, just because he loved her… and yet, now he found himself thinking more about the way he had swayed Lady Arryn and a various lords for the blacks than Alys and his feelings for her. Alys. A Stark by blood, a Snow in all that mattered. He would have never wed her even if she had been a Stark – thank the Seven that she wasn't because if she had been, she would have been unavailable to him. And in a moment that he regretted in the very next one, he succumbed to Baela's nagging and told her about what had happened. For the first time in his life, he had felt something that had been just his. He hated hurting her but wouldn't being confronted with reality after their win hurt her even more? She might not be the most feminine of girls but Jace could not imagine one who would be happy to hear that her lord husband had taken a mistress. At any case, she heard him out without saying anything. She did not even go pale. Only her eyes went so very wide.

"I see," she finally said.

 _No, you don't_ , he wanted to say, although she was not stupid. He had told the situation as it was. How could she not see?

"Thank you for being honest," she went on and Jace felt some vague disappointment, although he could not have hoped for a better reaction. "Never lie to me," she warned. "Never lie to me, Jacaerys, or you will regret it, I promise you. And now, I have things to do."

Jace tried to see her off to wherever she was going – something about the ruling of Dragonstone, no doubt, for she had undertaken _this_ part of his mother's duties – but she shook her head no. And for all her insistence that she wanted honesty and nothing else, it was always no from this moment on. They worked together. They navigated his mother's tears and despair, their grandfather's insistence on immediate attack on King's Landing, the correspondence with her father like a well-oiled machine – but the ease that had always been there was now lost. Baela would no longer seek him out when not needed, no longer smile at him and Jace felt this change as a small pang of loss whenever he had a moment for himself.

But if there was something that they both agreed on, it was their family's safety. Jace withstood Joffrey's anger and insistence to stay without flinching and was grateful that the boy was still young enough to believe him when he told him that he would be needed for the defense of the Vale. But sooner or later, Joffrey would find out that it was a lie… and then, someone would be needed to hold him back.

"Rhaena," Baela said without hesitation, her face set in such determination that Jace did not dare tell her that he had wanted to send both girls with Joff… His future queen was needed here but there was no reason to keep Rhaena in a place that was not the safest for her.

In the day Joffrey and Rhaena flew off for the Vale, Jace and Baela stood at the window of the highest tower at Dragonstone and waved until their arms hurt, long after the mighty wings had carried the two away.

"Are they ever going to come back?" Baela whispered.

"They will," Jace replied and when he put an arm around her shoulders, she did not shake it off.

Next came Aegon and Viserys. As reluctant as Joff to leave and much more scared. Jace steeled his heart and watched them board the ship with the best encouraging smile that he could muster.

"We must have the courage to send them away if we expect of them to have the courage to go," Baela had said the night before but she was barely able to keep her own brave mask on now when they were truly leaving, dark shapes over dark water, in a dark night because who knew how many eyes and ears Set Otto Hightower had here? It was the best that no one knew of Jace's plans and the boys leaving.

So, it was just the four of them now – his grieving mother, his burning for revenge grandfather, he, and the girl who had had to shoulder so many burdens lately, with him adding to them. Dragonstone had always felt crammed to him but now he realized how enormous it was. Enormous – and devoid of life.

"You're doing really well," Baela would tell him at night when they met for the evening meal and their future plans. There was no sparkle in her eyes now but Jace suspected that there was none in his either. They were like two weary men at-arms at the end of another day of a long march. Only when the first bastard managed to tame the first dragon, she screamed with joy and he grabbed her and spun her around as he would have once. She laughed and for a moment, everything in his world was fine again.

Until Aegon returned. Until Baela pressed her hand to her mouth as they listened to their little brother's anguished tale and knew that they might be losing Viserys at this very moment, as they spoke.

"No," their grandfather said calmly. "Even in the best of weather, they can't be much farther than the middle of the road. If they are going to the Free Cities, they are still out, in the open sea. But if they decide to stop on any of the small islands and wait it out there…"

"How many?" Jace asked, his mouth dry. "How many such islands are there, Grandfather?"

"Over fifty, blast them!" Corlys boomed out, his forced composure giving out as well. "That I know about, that's it."

Jace went quiet, thinking.

"We're leaving tomorrow," he said.

"I'm coming as well," Baela said and before he could snap that they could ill afford to baby a baby dragon that had never flown, her face fell. "But I… won't be of much use, will I?"

She was changing so rapidly, his little princess. It was for the good and yet it saddened him. When they left, she stood at the window to see them off, like they had done with Joff and Rhaena, and Jace carried her parting words, "Fly safe and bring him home" as a warm glow to guide him home.

When he saw the short frame on the deck of the Lysene galley, he felt how something within him relaxed. Viserys was there. _I will bring him home, Baela,_ he thought joyously even as he realized that the men on the galleys knew how to fight dragons.

 _Fly safe_ , she had told him and now he realized that he had not. Pushed by his fear, he had been too quick, left the others behind… and she would scold him for this, no doubt. Always imperious, always ready to pounce on his mistakes.,, was it any wonder that he had fallen for Alys instead? But now, as he barely avoided an arrow and flew up to give Vermax and himself a little reprieve, he realized that he could not remember Alys' face at all. He tried to summon the otherness that had so enthralled him and what came to him instead were purple eyes and hair spun of silver, the fate that had been chosen for him by others but his fate nonetheless. _You,_ he thought as he flew downwards again to finish this business, burn them down, take Viserys, and bring him home. _I choose you._


	7. Helaena

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Kings and Queens, and Breath of Death

 _Helaena_

She was fascinated with Lady of the Vale the very moment when she… not, not when she saw her. Later. The very moment she saw interact with men, in the throne room where her father had not minded to let her in, provided that she was quiet and not interrupt. Lady Jeyne Arryn spoke of taxes and brigands, and courts of law with the certainty of a lord and the men were nodding or disagreeing but none of them smiled at her as if he was surprised by her sharp thought. Indulgently.

"This is because she's a lady in her own right," Helaena's mother explained to her later. "Sometimes, such abominations happen."

Helaena wondered what was wrong with someone being a lady in her own right but she knew better than to ask. Just like she knew she had to conceal the fact that she was brighter than both Aegon and Aemond – no, Aegon and Aemond combined – because her mother bristled at every hint that her sons were anything other than perfect. She would look down, properly embarrassed-looking, when her father praised her mind and ordered books in old Valyrian for her that Aegon could never read. "You're the clever one, aren't you?" he would exclaim and once or twice, she had overheard him say that she had gotten the brains that had been meant for her and Aegon both. Which irritated her mother to no end and this, in turn, irritated her father.

"I swear by the gods, Alicent, that I don't understand you," he said. "Are you really ready to sacrifice your own daughter at the altar of your hatred for Rhaenyra? Helaena is yours. Are you not proud of her?"

"More than you're proud of your sons," her mother always retaliated and Helaena wanted to say that well, there wasn't much about her brothers to be proud of but she never dared.

"If Helaena had been born a boy, we could have stood a chance," her grandfather said at one of his visits to court, "Alas, you had to bring Aegon to this world, with brains about as half as hers."

Her mother bristled. "So it's my fault now? Perhaps if you have been less pressing, he wouldn't have sent you back to Oldtown… when are you leaving back, by the way?"

Constantly pressed not to behave as if she was too bright, trained to be the perfect lady wife to someone not of her choosing, Helaena was stunned when she was told that she was the one who was supposed to claim Dreamfyre.

"But… my egg still has time to hatch!" she protested feebly, fear squeezing the voice deep in her lungs.

"We can't afford to wait anymore," her mother said curtly and Helaena wondered if she would have said the same if it had been Aegon's egg that had not hatched. Would she put _him_ at risk? "I believe you're strong and clever enough not just to escape her ire, should she take offence, but come out in triumph."

How ironic that this confession Helaena had longed most to hear came at a moment when she felt neither!

Only years later would she give the fact that in her desperate fear, she had not thought for a moment to turn to her father who was likely unaware of his queen's plans for help. She might be his precious darling, the cleverest among his children by Alicent but at the end of it, she was Alicent's blood, as she had heard him refer to her and her brothers more than once. He might have ordered that the attempt at claiming should not take place this time but eventually, his resistance would wear out under his queen's insistence. He would not fight Helaena's corner the way he was always ready to fight Rhaenyra's, a fact that was proven a year later, when, to her horror, Helaena was informed that she would be wed to Aegon. Aegon! Aegon, who only cared about his pleasures. Aegon, who could not hold a clever conversation for the life of his. Aegon, whom no ladies or serving maids were safe from. This Aegon?

"I might have thought about this if it would make me Queen," Helaena said, in a brave display of bravery and readiness to defy her mother. "But the Iron Throne will pass to Rhaenyra and I will have to put up with Aegon for life. No. I won't do it."

Although her mother looked as if she were about to slap her, among the gasps of their ladies, shocked that meek little Helaena had this much courage, there was a sudden spark in her eye that the girl interpreted only years later.

But of course, her resistance did not last long. If her father had been at her side… But Helaena knew about the threats he had given even his beloved Rhaenyra when she had demanded the right to not wed the man he had chosen. Indeed, her mother's determination wore him down in less than week. "Aegon isn't a bad lad," he told her. "He will appreciate the goodness of your heart. He will change."

Did he truly believe it? Staring at him, Helaena marveled at how anyone had chosen him over Princess Rhaenys. A man he was but he was also ready to take great risks on the optimistic belief that his hopes would come true. Once again she realized that there was only one person in the world that he loved enough to stop in his striving for a comfortable and peaceful life. And this person's name was not Helaena.

From this moment on, she stayed truly alone in a world where the tensions bubbled, flowed, roared under the surface in a fierce vortex that only her father could fail to notice.

"As long as you keep obedience, I'll be good to you," Aegon promised her in the horror that was their wedding night. "If you don't, I'll remember every instance you made me feel lazy, stupid, unworthy to be called a Targaryen."

His voice was mild but Helaena felt how the trap set by her mother and grandfather under her father's kindly reconciled eye sprang.


	8. Baela

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Kings and Queens, and Breath of Death

 _Baela_

Whenever the pain broke through the milk of the poppy that they dozed her on, she could heard the shouts– the shouts of maesters, the shouts of the maidservants who bather her burnt, feverish body, the shouts of the knights who came in, insisting to see her with their own eyes to be sure that she was truly at the Stranger's door, that her attendants were not lying. She would wince at the pain these exchanged wrought upon her lacerated mind but that would only make them yell louder. Why did all these people shout anyway? She was too stunned, too wrapped in the haze of the palliative, in too much pain to realize that her raw mind was taking the faintest whisper and turned it into something grotesque.

"She was so brave," the maidservants said and Maester Hunnimore scolded them for talking too much but he did not deny it. Baela was surprised that she did not feel any satisfaction. Bravery could only give so much delight, it seemed. If fierce enough, the pain in one's body could override it – and how! She would close her eyes under the bandages and drift back into a restless sleep that would leave her startling awake with a scream – or startling awake when _they_ started screaming as the Stranger and the Mother fought their ceaseless battle leaning over her on opposite sides, trying to drag her into opposing directions until she sobbed from the pain of tearing.

"Is she ever going to be beautiful again?" she heard one day as she lay on her pillow, trying not to stir, trying to convince herself that it did not hurt this much, that the burning in her body and the entire left side of her face was a product of her feverish imagination.

"No," Maester Hunnimore yelled back and Baela wondered how such a thunderous roar could sound so mournfully.

 _You old man,_ she thought angrily. How dare you think that it matters _? Jace will barely notice it, for he has never looked at my face when_ … and then she remembered that Jace was already dead, claimed by the sea, and that at the end, he had not wanted her even when she had still had her beauty. He had not expressed any wish to have the betrothal broken, of course, but Baela would not have wed him if he had been alive… and now, she could not wed him at all. Tears prickled her eyes, but the bandages were so thick that they soaked the tiny bits of dampness immediately, refusing her hot skin this small relief. Between nightmares, heavy sleep where even nightmares could not break in, and the changes of bandages, being bathed with wet towels, and given clear soups to drink, Baela had all the time in the world to remember… because a princess was not given the luxury to forget.

* * *

The moment her stepmother's travail started – this was the stopping of time, the overturning of the hourglass before its time, the heartbeat during which everything began to fall apart. Life as she knew it was no more, and not just because of her uncle's death and the usurpation Aegon and his traitorous mother of his had accomplished. Baela was old enough to actually remember the day of Viserys' birth – what she remembered in particular was that Rhaenyra had visited them to see how their lessons were going and said she had some paperwork to do, still unaware that the birth would start in the afternoon and before night fell, she would have a new son. This time, her screams and curses lasted for eternity and at the end, they only produced a deformed thing that Baela was grateful she did not have to see. And from then on, everything developed as if in a nightmare that she could not wake up from. The moment when her father placed the crown on Rhaenyra's head, when the gathered crowd cheered and acclaimed the new Queen, he turned into someone Baela did not know. She had always heard much about his vaunted bravery, had felt proud when she had been compared to him in this… but she had never seen this fierce delight in his eyes, the very thing that had likely _won_ him this repute. There was no doubt that he hated the situation with passion, that he detested the usurper and this conniving Hightower kin of his more than Rhaenyra herself, perhaps… but he thrilled in the possibility of a battle and this scared Baela, although it would not be until many years later that she'd be able to put her unease in words, realize what the reason was. And while for a while the idea of a just war might have held some appeal to her as well, it was quickly vanquished when the first ravens arrived.

Baela wept for weeks and even months for Luke, always kind and accepting. But she wept in secret because Rhaena would not weep in front of people, even her, and if Rhaena would not, then neither would she. But it was worse than the time Rhaena's dragonet died – and then, Baela had thought that nothing could surpass this in awfulness. The delight that she took in her own Moondancer was still tinged in guilt and discomfort – just how much worse could still having Jace be?

Infinitely worse, it turned out.

Of course, at the end she did not have him. As she struggled to uphold Rhaenyra's Dragonstone duties together with Rhaena while their grandparents took care of the greater ones, as she glanced at the sea at any chance she got, hoping to see great wings, Jacaerys had fared better: not only had he yielded a smashing success with the North, seemingly without much effort, but he had managed to find love as well, it seemed. Find someone else.

Baela might be like her father in many respects but there were many things that she could tolerate – and some that she would not! She made her decision as soon as she dragged the words out of the mouth of the so reluctant Jace: Baela Targaryen would not become Jacaerys Velaryon's wife. She would not suffer the humiliation of being his queen and having competition in the face of a mere bastard, a _Snow_. Of course, her father and stepmother would not hear about this but she would make it work. Somehow. When they won.

For quite a while, she hugged her hatred for Jace as a precious gem against her breast. Here, he had achieved something that he had not even wished for: he had made her secretive and dishonest. But she knew she could not risk announce her decisions right now. Everyone – even he! – would be terrified and Baela certainly did not want to know what her father would do. She had heard the rumours about his own deeds while he had been still wed to Lady Rhea… The only ally she might have had, her grandmother, had found a fiery death, worthy of a Targaryen princess but one that had taken her from Baela anyway. She had never imagined that anything, anything could take the Queen Who Never Was down and the world would just keep existing.

The worst thing was that outwardly, things had not changed. They worked together, they hatched plans, they considered things like safety against their grandfather's vengeful rage… They were together all the time and he tried to stay with her even when they did not have to be around each other. At each refusal, he looked like a kicked puppy, as if he had been the one who had heard that they were unwanted! As if she had been the one who had betrayed all their childhood plans and dreams, and secret innocent kisses here and there, for someone she had known for mere weeks!

"So, was it his mistake, or yours?" Rhaena asked on the eve of her leaving for the Vale.

"His," Baela said without hesitation.

"You have to forgive him, then, you know," her sister said, folding a white linen shift. "He loves you so much."

Now, this was so ridiculous that Baela opened her mouth to laugh but instead, a sob came out. Rhaena threw her arms around her sister without saying anything. "Are you going to tell me?" she finally asked. "When we see each other next?"

Baela nodded. "When we see each other next," she promised and wondered how people could dismiss Rhaena's strength just because she had been unlucky with her dragon.

Little did she know that when they would see each other next, over a year would have passed. That she would be so deeply sunken into the lie that she would have wed Jace – because who could ever support the rightful queen if the truth came out that her presumed bastard had fallen in love with another bastard, even if he was dead now? – that she would be unable to tell the truth even to Rhaena because the words would simply not come out. That their father would have fought a glorious, vain death, leaving all of them – Rhaenyra, his sons, his daughters – to fend for themselves. That they would be the only ones left - the four of them or rather, the three of them as they would think at the time. That they would be unable to help Aegon who bore the deepest scars. That after her determination not to wed someone who loved another girl over her she would end up wedding a man who would make love to more women than she cared to count. That her entire life would be determined by a single act of bravery and loyalty that she would never, ever come to regret but as she could not sleep at night, the stinging of the scars driving her mad and urging her to compulsively examine the ruined half of her face as Alyn either slept or was far away in a bed that he did not sleep in, she sometimes wondered bitterly if this moment had been truly worth a lifetime of agony.


End file.
